On Nick Hodge’s excellent video podcast last night, noted futurist Mark Pesce said (and I quote) that I should “shut the fuck up.”

He’s entitled to his views, but it’s what he said around it that I take offense at (and the reason I’m writing this post), in particular the idea that I ignore the excellent work done by a range of Australian startups when I don’t. I’ve never met Mark, let alone swapped an email with him, so I find his claims bizarre to say the least given he had never read my views (outside of one post), nor asked me about them. Australia has a vibrant startup community, full of people who are succeeding despite the lack of support (specifically a vibrant VC community that invests in web based startups.) Not only have I had the privilege of meeting many fine people in the community, I’ve also written about them.

I do find it odd though that a futurist who earlier in the interview spoke about reading so extensively doesn’t understand the meaning of context as well.

This post was in the context of the Future Summit, an event that was suppose to be a show case of Australia’s biggest and brightest leaders. If we accept that underlying premise of it representing the best, tech doesn’t have a bright future in this country because they don’t get it. Conversations I had the day after that post horrified me even more and confirmed what I had written. Tech, and particularly web based startups just aren’t on the radar for these people. The idea that millions are employed directly and indirectly in web based industries in the United States is foreign to them. I can’t help that they don’t get it, but stating that they don’t is stating fact.

That is in no way to say that Australian startups don’t exist today, or more will emerge tomorrow: they will because of bright people like Mick Liubinskas at Pollenizer (a company I should note that builds projects for other startups), but likewise given what I heard, the Australian web startup industry will remain at its current low and slow rate (again, we have startups, but we’re not even close to a range of other comparable countries by volume.)

But Pesce wasn’t there. A few smart people in the room (and there was some) doesn’t balance the sheer weight of tech ignorance from the rest.

Pesce also claims incorrectly that I’m some how a big Government interventionist, again having never once spoken to me. Quite the contrary, and this can be confirmed by many others (including Bronwen Clune who heard me speak on this over lunch at the Summit), or in the submission I made yesterday to Elias Bizannes who is compiling submissions for the Government on the question “what do we need to tell Australia’s Government to build our tech industry?”

Indeed Pesce and I agree: Government should get out of the way, and direct Government support isn’t necessarily the answer either.

But here’s the part Pesce either doesn’t understand, or is ignoring: we don’t have a level playing field, and this is holding us back. Here’s part of what I wrote in my submission:

The Government needs to level the playing field when it comes to investment within the various sectors of ICT, and with investment opportunities outside the sector. That can come in two forms: removal of investment incentives in sectors that currently receive it, or the extension of investment incentives to those that currently miss out, specifically web focused companies. For example, there are tax incentives offered currently in areas such as Biotech and Blue Gum trees, but not in web based industries (tax credits, R+D etc). The problem today is simple: those with money to invest favor those investments that offer tax incentives over investments that don’t.

Then there’s the CGT problem vs the United States

The Government should consider reviewing CGT, in particular with consideration to CGT deferment on rollover where the capital gain is reinvested in ICT, and more specifically web based industries. This has been cited in the United States as being one of the big drivers behind the VC industry there (I can provide references later if required.)

Government does have a role here, and that’s in creating a favorable environment for investment in web based startups. Even if you hate Government intervention like Pesce does, you can’t ignore the role of Government in the United Sates in creating a favorable investment environment that has fueled the growth of web startups, particularly in the San Francisco Bay region.

The alternative of course is Government intervention and spending. It’s not my preferred outcome, but it is a point strongly argued by others. If CGT and incentive reforms can’t be undertaken to create a favorable investment environment, only then do I become a supporter of direct Government intervention. Consider that millions, billions have been spent on legacy industries such as clothing and car making. If only a small amount of that money was allocated to supporting local web industries, it has to help.

I’ll guess I’ll shut the fuck up now, because I don’t know what I’m talking about. PS: we were up one spot on the Top 100 Australian Web Startups yesterday.

Repeat after me….repeat after me….polly want a cracker….. least that’s what we got with tonights budget when it came to the NBN.

Mentioned by Wayne Swan, and naturally trumpeted by Stephen Conroy (in a press release) new funding for the NBN itself in this years budget was….wait for it….$0.

You don’t have to believe me though: here’s the direct link. The $4.7b was allocated and announced LAST YEAR. We’re still missing the other $38.3 billion….

There was one new NBN related item though, and up front its actually a good thing: $250m for the regional backbone blackspots program.

Also in non-capital items was an allocation of $53.2 billion for pre NBN rollout functions, including the feasibility study for the NBN, with delivery of the report due “early 2010.” What is odd is that this is new funding: why wasn’t the feasibility study costed in the original $4.7b? what else hasn’t been budgeted?

Funding of $53.2 million in 2009?¢‚Ǩ‚Äò10 will be provided to the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy to conduct an implementation study into the NBN that will examine detailed engineering, commercial and structural issues and report by early 2010. The funding will also support the department in the early implementation of a network in Tasmania, implementation of the regional backbone blackspots program, and development of legislation and a regulatory framework.

Censorship

There was absolutely no mention of the Great Firewall of Australia in this years budget from what I could see. The program had a 4 year allocation last year, so needs no mention if there are no changes.

However, there were a couple of things to note. ACMA is closing its Perth and Adelaide offices in a move that will save over $2m. The budget line item only says that the roles these offices currently undertake will be absorbed by other offices. Employment numbers aren’t broken out, so we don’t know if this means less people, but you’d guess possibly less. Likewise, no idea what the Perth and Adelaide offices do, for example face to face contact, admin..no idea.

In the AG portfolio there’s no mention of additional funding for the classification board. This is surprising, because the implementation of internet censorship will increase the board’s workload.

The funding stripped from the AFP to fight child porn, and given to the filter instead has not been reinstated. There was no child porn fighting related budget items in AG or BCDE.

One of the few Australian television programs we watch is Underbelly. However when I say watch I think we’ve watched it once when its broadcast on a Monday night, mostly we catch up with it during the week.

Nine was half reasonable in offering a DRM infested download of the show, as part of their “catchup TV” offering.

First couple of weeks was fine, but for at least the last 3-4 episodes, downloading it has been a pain. The download connection constantly drops out, so you need to restart it a dozen times to get it to finish. I’ve done a trace on the problems, it’s not on our end, it’s their server constantly cutting us off.

But the problems have gotten worse, because now the download speeds have become spotty. Where it might start at 120kbps down, it slows to 10kbps, before cutting out. This week that meant that when I wanted to watch it on Tuesday, I finally finished downloading it on Wednesday (note, because of the constant cut offs, you can’t just leave the computer to download it over night.)

But this week was the icing on the cake, because despite taking two days, and probably 5-6 hours to download on my 24mpbs ADSL2, Nine then inserted pre-roll ads. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t object to seeing ads on a legal download, but I object to being forced to view ads (the DRM meant we couldn’t fast forward, despite the download playing in Quicktime) when it was such a bloody hassle in getting the download to start with.

It’s enough to turn a person to piracy, after all, it would have taken maybe 2-3 hours max (possibly quicker) to download Underbelly from BitTorrent. If it was available on a streaming site (I didn’t check) I could have watched it on demand, without waiting for the download.

The big fail is why Nine is doing the downloads to begin with, and not offering Underbelly on demand, be it through a Flash, or Silverlight embed. Seven and Ten are offering shows this way, so why is Nine being different?

The point of offering an alternative to piracy is to offer an alternative that is similar, or more appealing to the pirated version. On this front, Nine fails.

Dave Earley has put together a list of “Australia?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s top 100 Journalists and news media people on Twitter.”

I didn’t count them, but there seems to be more than 100. Either way, damn fine list, and without doubt the best compilation of this type I’ve seen yet. I’d hate to think how long it must have taken him.

Notable is how many of the hacks at News and Fairfax have embraced Twitter. Talk about everyone piling on the train all at once.